Outdoor luminaires have begun to be pressed into service as power and mounting platforms for a variety of electronic sensor and data processing systems. The sensors used in these systems can be one or more from a wide variety including, but not limited to, cameras, microphones, environmental gas sensors, accelerometers, gyroscopes, antennas, and many others.
Due to the nature of outdoor placement, exposure to a variety of weather conditions must be considered when contemplating the construction of such a system. A variety of traditional sealing and weatherproofing methods exist for the creation of a housing that can contain the electronics portion of the system, and standard methods exist for means to protect optical elements, such as protective windows and performance enhancement coatings for use with cameras and lenses. A special case exists when considering the means to package a microphone for use on such an outdoor luminaire platform, as further described herein.